Indy headline packs powerful propagandistic punch

A 13-year-old Palestinian girl evidently came to an Israeli checkpoint, near the West Bank settlement of Alfei Menashe, on Wednesday for one reason: to take her own life.

The girl approached the checkpoint carrying a bag, and ignored guards’ orders for her to stop. They then apparently fired a warning shot in the air, at which point the teen reached toward her shirt.

Guards then shot her in the leg.

She later reportedly acknowledged her desire to provoke guards to shoot her. “I came to die”, she said during questioning.

The suicide by fake terror attack was such a central element of the story that even the anti-Israel Russian propaganda site RT included this angle in their headline accompanying a report on the incident.

A Haaretz article noted the reported suicide attempt in the strap line:

Even news sites which didn’t include information about the attempted suicide in the headline or strap line at least explained that the girl ignored orders to stop, thus providing some information on why guards fired their weapon.

The Independent, on the other hand, published an articleon the incident (a day after most outlets filed their reports) accompanied by a headline including only the most inflammatory elements of the story, ignoring the fact that the girl allegedly wanted to provoke guards and then ignored orders to stop.

Here’s the headline chosen by editors in an otherwise unproblematic story by Lizzie Dearden:

Though the Indy article included information on the attempted suicide in the fifth paragraph of the article, if you were to merely read the headline and strap line (or glanced at the tweet), you’d believe that Israeli security personnel summarily executed a Palestinian child – the propagandistic narrative of course favoured by Palestinian Authorityleaders.

An even more egregiously misleading Independent headline is featured in CAMERA’s continually updated round-up of bad headlines during the latest terror surge.